Dem
51
GOP
49
Many people in Utah do not care for trans people. So, the Utah legislature passed a law that was designed to address "the problem." It's not so easy for the government to impose itself on private businesses and institutions without running afoul of the law, but government-owned spaces are fair game. So, the Utah law made it illegal for people to use a bathroom where the gender is different from the one on their birth certificate, with the penalties also extending to state employees (particularly teachers) who did not enforce this policy with sufficient vigor. And to aid with enforcement of the law, the state created a tip line and a website, so people could tattle on their fellow Utahns. The penalty for a violation is a fine of up to $10,000.
This is, to be blunt, crazy overreach. It's not a secret, to anyone who reads this site regularly, that we don't approve of anti-trans discrimination. And beyond that, turning one's state into a literal police state tears at the fabric of civil society, and rarely, if ever, works out well. After all, the great majority of people don't have the experience to actually judge who is, and who is not, trans.
It has not worked out well in this case. Since the tip line and the website went online, the state auditor's office has gotten more than 10,000 phone calls and more than 5,000 web reports. And how many of them were legitimate? Approximately zero. It's at least possible there's a real one in there somewhere, but sifting through all the fake ones takes so much time and labor that state authorities have yet to find an actionable tip.
This is not the first rodeo of this sort. Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Virginia and other states have tried to set up tip lines/tip websites to allow people to alert state authorities about naughty books, teachers who seem to be teaching critical race theory, clinics offering gender-affirming care, and other things that offend (primarily) evangelical sensibilities. All were flooded with fake calls, and all (or nearly all) had to be taken down. Good, we say. (Z)